Valerie wasn't entirely sure what was happening.
Everything was plodding along like normal, less than five minutes ago. Valerie had been sat in chemistry class, absently messing with the Bunsen burner flame in front of her as her lab partner rattled of the next step of the experiment they were supposed to be doing. Her partner, Angela, was nice enough, but the word 'interesting' certainly did not apply to her. Valerie nodded politely and carried out the method read out to her, wondering how long till the end of the lesson. She was gazing absently at the clock, its hands as slow as if ticking through treacle... when It happened.
If only she knew what 'It' was.
Her world plunged into darkness, and she felt the ground shake violently as though the earth was roaring. And the noise...something spectacular was happening but she, sat in this insignificantly classroom with her back to the window, wasn't able to bear witness to it. The flames of Bunsen burners all blinked out almost instantaneously and a frantic chatter broke out. Valerie nearly toppled off her chair as she fumbled for the edge of her desk to stop herself from losing her balance entirely. Angela was murmuring wildly, her tone fluctuating rapidly as she tried to work out what was happening and Valerie merely blinked, forcing her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. She felt herself shiver and then realised it was from the cold that had unfolded silently in the absence of the light.
"What happened? I can't see anything! It's freezing!"
"Mrs Rodgers...she was helping me f-f-ix my solution...she just vanished! Like, literally! Flashed out of existence!"
"Oh, shit! I just dropped my phone in the hydrochloric acid!"
Valerie, her feet itching with adrenaline, leapt off her chair and headed towards the doorway. She needed to move. Something freaky had happened and no way was she simply going to sit and wait for someone - she was a get-up-and-go type of person. A few others had a similar idea and she had to squeeze past them out the doorway. The corridor beyond them didn't illuminate the situation. Literally; the lights were out there too and she had to squint to see what was going on.
It only occurred to her to use her phone as light when she saw other doing it to. Grinning at her idiocy - for how else can you react in a situation as bizarre as this? - she slipped the cool, metallic object out her pocket and held it out in front of herself like a lantern. Kids streamed past her, their faces frozen in mirrored expressions of confusion, irritation and fear. She saw someone yelling at the end of the corridor and made a beeline for them, relieved that some sort of order was beginning to form amidst the chaos. Maybe a teacher had shown up to shed some sort of light on what exactly was happening.
But it appeared the source was no older than her - a guy, yelling orders about designated leaders, or something. Unthinkingly, she glided forward, determined to be involved in whatever was happening. She hated this sickening disorientation of having such a familiar routine destroyed without even a shred of an answer to how, why, what or who. And the whole thing seemed way too elaborate - too large, too real - to be a prank. She pushed her way forward.
"This is just crazy - where are the teachers? And why is it so cold?" she felt herself babble as much to herself as anyone else, trembling both from the cold and fear of the unknown.
